Tag Archives: one-word prompt

After a year of lectures I’ve completed, successfully, the GIBS Social Entrepreneurship programme. It was tougher than I thought it would be mainly because it took a lot more time than I thought it would. My graduation is in April and I can’t wait to celebrate with my classmates. We went through some tough times, pushed through them, and came out all the better for it on the other side. And I’ve made some lifelong friends.

Would I do it again? Yes…and not right now 🙂

Right now I’m enjoying the free time, to read and write and spend time with my family and friends. I’ve reconnected with people that are important to me and I’m looking forward to having leisurely cups of coffee, without nervously looking at my watch.

Embracing melancholy as part of my nature, not something to be denied or relegated to the dark stifling depths of who I don’t want to be is probably the most difficult thing to share.

This is the area from which my style of writing comes from, the most authentic tone as I ponder life’s vagaries. It is this part of me that writes passable prose and the rare poem or two. It is this part of me that keeps those poems private feeling shame of the voice within me. It is this part of me that paralyses me, faced with a blank page, the unformed thoughts, unable to put them into words raging within me, never seeing the light of day to be forever locked away by my inner critic.

Embracing melancholy is what enabled me to write this piece, without stopping, allowing the words to spill from my consciousness to my fingers to this page.

I haven’t yet found a language for my melancholy.

It’s not a sadness it’s not depression. It’s a stirring dissatisfaction with the present, the status quo, of things that could be different, of my role in changing them and the eventual acceptance that I’m not able to change everything…

As soon as the Bolo Rei is in the oven I will start on the lasagne. It’s simple wholesome food tonight.

For tomorrow, the first day of 2018, we braai.

“For last year's words belong to last year's language
And next year's words await another voice.”
― T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets

Have an amazing evening.

Wishing you 2018 that will bring you all that you desire.

Until tomorrow…

“I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes.
Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You're doing things you've never done before, and more importantly, you're Doing Something.
So that's my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody's ever made before. Don't freeze, don't stop, don't worry that it isn't good enough, or it isn't perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life.
Whatever it is you're scared of doing, Do it.
Make your mistakes, next year and forever.”
― Neil Gaiman

Like this:

When I was a child my family and I relocated to different places. It was never more than 50 kilometres from the previous place, except for when we relocated from Mozambique to South Africa.

So when we relocated, it sometimes meant going to a new school. This caused nervous jitters because of having to get to know the teachers, make new friends and get used to new rules.

It also meant that my parents had to buy new school uniforms for us kids, always an expensive task. Which is why I loved reading the story of the grade 12 learners at the Eersterivier Secondary School in Cape Town who left their school uniforms in plastic bags on their desks, for future learners who don’t have any.

When I was still in school, at the graduation from primary to high school the tradition was to get our uniforms signed by all our teachers and classmates, a memento of the years spent together. The same thing happened when graduating from high school. I still have my high school uniform, with all the signatures and well wishes. I haven’t looked at it since they were signed.

So instead of getting the uniform all scribbled on, it’s much better to donate it to learners whose parents can’t afford a new one.